WDVX
Encyclopedia
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, FM radio station broadcasting at 89.9 and 102.9 MHz.
WDVX plays American roots music
American Roots Music
American Roots Music is a 2001 multi-part documentary film that explores the historical roots of American Roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement: Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, and many others....
, including bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, Americana
Americana (music)
Americana is an amalgam of roots musics formed by the confluence of the shared and varied traditions that make up the American musical ethos; specifically those sounds that are merged from folk, country, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and other external influential styles...
, classic country
Classic country
Classic country is a music radio format that specializes in playing mainstream country hits from past decades.This genre generally follows one of two formats: those specializing in hits from the 1920s through the early 1970s, and focus primarily on innovators and artists from country music's Golden...
, alternative country
Alternative country
Alternative country is a loosely defined sub-genre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music...
, Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, old-time
Old-time music
Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music, with roots in the folk music of many countries, including England, Scotland, Ireland and countries in Africa. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dance, buck dance, and clogging. The genre also...
and traditional mountain music, bluegrass gospel, Celtic
Celtic music
Celtic music is a term utilised by artists, record companies, music stores and music magazines to describe a broad grouping of musical genres that evolved out of the folk musical traditions of the Celtic people of Western Europe...
, and folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.
Incorporated in 1991, WDVX is licensed by the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC) to the Cumberland Communities Communications Corporation, a not-for-profit organization whose main focus is the music, folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
and arts of the southern Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
n mountains. It broadcasts at 200 watts from a transmitter on Cross Mountain in Campbell County
Campbell County, Tennessee
Campbell County is a U.S. county located in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of 2010, the population was 40,716. Its county seat is Jacksboro. The Census Bureau has identified the county as a Micropolitan Statistical Area, designated the LaFollette Micropolitan Statistical Area for the largest...
, just outside Lake City, Tennessee
Lake City, Tennessee
Lake City is a town in Anderson and Campbell counties in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Tennessee, northwest of Knoxville. The population was 1,888 at the 2000 census...
.
WDVX was named Bluegrass Radio Station of the Year in 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008 and 2009, and its program hosts have been named Bluegrass DJ of the Year award by the Society for Preservation of Bluegrass Music in America (SPBGMA).
The listener-supported station's signal is streamed on the Web, attracting a following around the world. For example, in 2006 it was featured in the German-language America Journal.
It is one of few American radio stations to feature almost daily live musical performances. The WDVX Blue Plate Special is a lunch-time concert at the Knoxville Visitor's Center on the city's main downtown shopping street. The Knoxville Tourism Alliance recognized the Blue Plate Special as the Attraction of the Year at its annual awards luncheon in 2006.
In August 2005, the Oxford American
Oxford American
The Oxford American is an American quarterly literary magazine "dedicated to featuring the very best in Southern writing while documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South."-First publication:...
magazine, a journal of Southern U.S.
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
culture, called WDVX "probably the best radio station in the world."